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A field guide to fairytale castles
Explore by feeling
Latest tales
Belgium
Belgium hides a startling number of storybook castles, from a six-towered fairytale keep near Dinant to a moated brick fortress on the edge of Brussels.
Belgium's real magic hides in its brown cafés and old beer bars, from a Bruges pub open since 1515 to a Brussels den where the surrealists once drank.
A storybook shortlist for a trip through Belgium, from the canals of Bruges to a town squeezed between a cliff and a river, and the tiny place that calls itself the smallest city in the world.
The Bavarian castle I dreamed about as a little girl, and everything I learned visiting it: the history, the views, and the great horse-carriage mistake.
Bavaria, Germany
Twelve grand old cafés where the magic is in stepping back in time, from the vaulted halls of Vienna and Venice to a Cairo coffee house that helped write a revolution and a Tokyo bar that ages its beans like wine.
Worldwide
Belgium's true storybook side hides in the countryside, from a whitewashed village near Bruges to the stone hamlets, moated towers, and castle towns of the Ardennes.
Twelve cities around the world that trade grids and glass for spires, canals, and painted hillsides, from a Baltic old town frozen in the Middle Ages to a Chilean port that spills up its hills in a riot of colour.
Twelve forests around the world that feel woven from magic, from a Belgian wood that turns violet-blue for two weeks a spring to a hillside of palms that tower two hundred feet into the Andean mist.
Twelve storybook villages across Europe, from a lake town so perfect it was copied brick for brick in China to a hamlet perched above a waterfall at the edge of the sea.
Europe
Twelve castles that look conjured straight out of a fairytale. From the icon that inspired Disney to the cliff-cave keep most travelers never find.